BA's case for orthodoxy

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Archie
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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Archie » 1 week 3 days ago (Tue May 30, 2023 10:44 pm)

bombsaway wrote:No there were others. From HC blog about Treblinka


I already quoted their key summary sentence for you. They listed ONE for Treblinka, two for Belzec, and three for Sobibor. Those are the "good" witnesses, according to HC.

They didn't include those other two (only briefly mentioned them separately) because they could not claim them as "direct" witnesses.

Archie wrote:The argument is that your whole thing hinges on fictional stories. These stories do not cohere credibly. To the extent they can be corroborated with hard evidence, then often fail on major points. They have internal contradicts and major contradictions with each other.


So you're saying that because they don't cohere on the details, that means >> the people who testified are definitely lying >> which means the entire event couldn't have happened. The logic would be that if it had indeed happened, the witness testimony would necessarily be much more consistent on the details. Am I understanding your argument properly? Please keep it simple in the response to this.


No, you are not understanding. Or you are pretending not to understand. Your "summary" of my argument is not even close. I am not going to repeat myself since it is unlikely to help. But I will copy a few key definitions for you below.

to cohere:
to be naturally or logically connected;
to agree; be congruous:


to corroborate
to make more certain; confirm:

contradiction
a statement or proposition that contradicts or denies another or itself and is logically incongruous.
direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby bombsaway » 1 week 2 days ago (Wed May 31, 2023 8:17 am)

Archie wrote:
I already quoted their key summary sentence for you. They listed ONE for Treblinka, two for Belzec, and three for Sobibor. Those are the "good" witnesses, according to HC.

They didn't include those other two (only briefly mentioned them separately) because they could not claim them as "direct" witnesses.


Yep nobody else who did work around the engines reported any other engine being down there. You haven't explained this coincidence, which is a good example of witnesses getting details right (and the same applies to gas van drivers and operators).


Archie wrote:The argument is that your whole thing hinges on fictional stories. These stories do not cohere credibly. To the extent they can be corroborated with hard evidence, then often fail on major points. They have internal contradicts and major contradictions with each other.


The stories all agree on the main point, which is that people were killed in the camps en masse. The stories don't agree on particular details, which could be argued as unimportant (eg the diesel thing, which revisionists didn't even pay much mind to until the 80s), but I don't see why this is an issue.

As I've said before I would expect witness testimony to diverge to some extent on details. This is par for the course for witness testimony concerning mass events. Eg German generals had totally different interpretations of key events and meetings during the war, witnesses differed in their reporting of the sinking of the Titanic. I can provide specific references here if need be.

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Hektor » 1 week 2 days ago (Wed May 31, 2023 8:25 am)

Archie wrote:....
No, you are not understanding. Or you are pretending not to understand. Your "summary" of my argument is not even close. I am not going to repeat myself since it is unlikely to help. But I will copy a few key definitions for you below.

to cohere:
to be naturally or logically connected;
to agree; be congruous:


to corroborate
to make more certain; confirm:

contradiction
a statement or proposition that contradicts or denies another or itself and is logically incongruous.
direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.


If you are not allowed to demonstrate uncertainties, problems with the evidence, problems with a thesis... There isn't really a way to make certain that something is true. The persecution/maltreatment of Revisionists is sufficient proof to conclude that the Holocaust Narrative is false. Because any falsification effort was squished, undermined and met with hostility. And all kinds of trickery and manipulation tactics are used to 'make people believe' in it. So those that don't believe in it are actually vindicated.

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby bombsaway » 1 week 2 days ago (Wed May 31, 2023 12:42 pm)

Getting back to Transnistria, which everyone seems to be agree is a well evidenced mass population transfer, Butterfangers in his post here speculated about the reasons why there is so much more evidence for this resettlement as compared to the larger one with Action Reinhard

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14859&p=109202&hilit=TRANSNISTRIA#p109202

And then he said this, in response to me asking for his evidentiary basis for concluding that the situation in Transnistria was radically different than the rest of USSR

Butterfangers wrote:I determined the difference by using Google for five minutes and actually trying to be honest and objective in my research. The Romanian government was an ally of Germany and thus was much more cooperative in developing administration related to Jewish policy. They also occupied the area of Transnistria very early in the war (mid-late 1941), and this area was adjacent / in very close proximity to the Romanian heartland. The Centrala Evreilor ("Jewish Center") was established by January 1942, as a centralized administration which dealt specifically with Jewish policy. No such centralized administration existed in the Baltic states and Ukraine, which were, rather, makeshift "puppet administrations" and only did what they were essentially forced to do, specifically related to the requirements as set forth by German officials. These areas were also vast, with Jews occasionally concentrated in major city areas however often vastly spread out over thousands of kilometers.


So basically 5 minutes of research with the conclusion that the difference would be that it is closer (does not explain why they would be less documented), higher density (but he did not quantify this in any way), and the existence of a centralized administration for Jewish policy . . . Centrala Evreilor.

But it's clear looking through this dossier that the deportation was attested to by sources outside of the Jewish center, eg here

dossier: http://hauster.de/data/Ancel/17020501Ancel.pdf

and as an example this document http://hauster.de/data/Ancel/Ancel133A.pdf

General Inspectorate of the Gendarmerie: daily bulletins and resumé on the condition of
the Jews in Odessa; epidemics in the ghettos and camps of Transnistria; arrival of
118,847 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina; exchange of money; the arrest of
individual Jews.

What do you make of the government sources reportage on the mass transfer? Why doesn't anything like this (police reports at the very least) exist for the Reinhard Jews?

And a secondary question, relating to the total lack of testimony from anyone (Germans, Slavs, Jews) about resettlement in German occupied USSR: why do these sources exist in abundance for Transnistria?

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby fireofice » 1 week 2 days ago (Wed May 31, 2023 3:16 pm)

Revisionists, please explain why people knew about Auschwitz but not the other resettlement camps??? You cannot explain this!!! :bounce:

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Archie » 1 week 2 days ago (Wed May 31, 2023 6:15 pm)

bombsaway wrote:
blah blah blah


Is "bombsaway" your first and only account here? Did you post here previously as "gl0spana"? It looks like you deleted that first account and made this new one. I guess that's okay as long as you aren't doing the sock puppet thing, but if you posted here under another name you really ought to be straight with us.

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Butterfangers » 1 week 2 days ago (Thu Jun 01, 2023 1:43 am)

bombsaway wrote:Getting back to Transnistria, which everyone seems to be agree is a well evidenced mass population transfer, Butterfangers in his post here speculated about the reasons why there is so much more evidence for this resettlement as compared to the larger one with Action Reinhard

We are both speculating here, bombsaway. The difference is that my speculation [that resettlement per "Final Solution" policy is much different than resettlement in Transnistria] is much better supported than your own [that we can reasonably compare the documentary record of the two].

bombsaway wrote:And then he said this, in response to me asking for his evidentiary basis for concluding that the situation in Transnistria was radically different than the rest of USSR

Butterfangers wrote:I determined the difference by using Google for five minutes and actually trying to be honest and objective in my research. The Romanian government was an ally of Germany and thus was much more cooperative in developing administration related to Jewish policy. They also occupied the area of Transnistria very early in the war (mid-late 1941), and this area was adjacent / in very close proximity to the Romanian heartland. The Centrala Evreilor ("Jewish Center") was established by January 1942, as a centralized administration which dealt specifically with Jewish policy. No such centralized administration existed in the Baltic states and Ukraine, which were, rather, makeshift "puppet administrations" and only did what they were essentially forced to do, specifically related to the requirements as set forth by German officials. These areas were also vast, with Jews occasionally concentrated in major city areas however often vastly spread out over thousands of kilometers.


So basically 5 minutes of research with the conclusion that the difference would be that it is closer (does not explain why they would be less documented), higher density (but he did not quantify this in any way), and the existence of a centralized administration for Jewish policy . . . Centrala Evreilor.


How dishonest can you be, bombsaway? You frame my argument as only indicating Transnistria was:

1) Closer [to the Romanian heartland]
2) Higher density [than that of Jews resettled across the vast Eastern-occupied territories]
3) Having a centralized administration for Jewish policy [as opposed to a total absence thereof]


You left out:

4) The Romanian government was an ally and cooperative with Germany [and the Soviet Union was not]
5) Transnistria was occupied much earlier in the war (mid-late 1941) than were the Eastern territories


Most significantly, you left out a much larger excerpt which also addressed Transnistria and adds several more points you left out. Here it is again (the third time I have shown it to you and the fourth that you have not addressed it):

Predictably, you ignore all of the points I have already outlined, again trying to compare a unique set of circumstances [Final Solution policy] to your own inferences about other events in history [Transnistria]. At minimum, you ignore:

  • administrative factors
  • diffusion/dispersion
  • Jews used for labor (light or heavy)
  • Jews in other camps and collection sites
  • motivations to document or lack thereof
  • cover-ups by Germans, Allied governments, the Soviets, and/or Jews themselves
  • Allied victory and handling of evidence
  • Soviet factors

Let's break those down into question format:

  • How many fewer reports should we expect with such stark differences in administration (between Transnistria and other Eastern-occupied territories)?
  • How many fewer should we expect when Jews were diffused/dispersed all throughout a massive region (i.e. relatively low numbers to each area)?
  • How many of the "unfit" Jews actually were used for labor in the East (hence, housed within the massive labor camp network through the end of the war)?
  • How many of the remaining Jews ended up in any of the thousands of other camps or collection sites which are known to have existed (remember, 40,000+ in Europe [the vast majority of which virtually no information is known])?
  • Who would have been motivated to document Jews that were resettled? Did the Germans have any real motivation to document these placements?
  • Who had motivation to actually cover-up these placements? How many could have been covered-up by the Germans? By the Allied governments? By the Soviets, in particular? By Jews themselves, wishing to remain in hiding long after the war?
  • How many were quite literally "erased" from the historical record by the Allies through the course of post-war trials and their dishonest historiography?
  • How many of these Jews did the Soviets kill immediately, imprison indefinitely, or otherwise wipe from the record?

[...]

Remember, it was the proponents of your position who first made the extraordinary claims you now defend. Not only do these lack the requisite extraordinary evidence in terms of that which is physical/forensic, and not only is the witness pool saturated with countless proven liars, but your documentary trail is fatally broken, as is your suggestion that documentation which opposes your hypothesis should be present (for the reasons shown above).


Why are you so slippery, bombsaway? Does anyone remember that Hitler quote I shared earlier in this thread? It's relevant yet again. Back to your nonsense:

bombsaway wrote:But it's clear looking through this dossier that the deportation was attested to by sources outside of the Jewish center, eg here

dossier: http://hauster.de/data/Ancel/17020501Ancel.pdf

and as an example this document http://hauster.de/data/Ancel/Ancel133A.pdf

General Inspectorate of the Gendarmerie: daily bulletins and resumé on the condition of
the Jews in Odessa; epidemics in the ghettos and camps of Transnistria; arrival of
118,847 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina; exchange of money; the arrest of
individual Jews.

What do you make of the government sources reportage on the mass transfer? Why doesn't anything like this (police reports at the very least) exist for the Reinhard Jews?

Pretending for a moment I have not already addressed this above, are we really supposed to believe you do not see any significant difference between:

(1) management of Jews by two partnering governments with meticulous administrative practices with respect to one of the most important security concerns (Jews) in either nation at the time, versus
(2) management of Jews being permanently resettled as a "Final Solution" far into approaching Soviet territory, with the expressed intent to rid them permanently from German life and society?


Do you truly believe that "business as usual" processes of record-keeping within (and adjacent to) Axis borders in 1941 should be in any way comparable to dumping Jews [years later, after the war had turned, as far away as possible, and as a "Final Solution"] in hopes they will remain or otherwise become the problem of an enemy nation?

And a secondary question, relating to the total lack of testimony from anyone (Germans, Slavs, Jews) about resettlement in German occupied USSR: why do these sources exist in abundance for Transnistria?

How long will you continue to pretend you don't understand the difference between these entirely different sets of circumstances?

Why are wildlife data and events recorded more consistently in some areas of the world versus others, in different time periods? Or weather and geological events? Censuses and other demographics?

The reason is simple: because different areas at different times (not to mention different motives!) are very often quite different. Unless you would suggest reason as to how or why they should be the same (or even similar), your suggestion that they must be is absurd.

I have broken down very clearly how we can reasonably conclude these circumstances are not similar and that, furthermore, it is most logical to suggest we'd expect very little to no documentation to appear regarding Jewish resettlement in the East, if the Revisionist thesis is true; discussed in more detail, here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15007

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby bombsaway » 1 week 1 day ago (Thu Jun 01, 2023 8:42 am)

Butterfangers wrote:We are both speculating here, bombsaway. The difference is that my speculation [that resettlement per "Final Solution" policy is much different than resettlement in Transnistria] is much better supported than your own [that we can reasonably compare the documentary record of the two].


I think this is your problem -- your speculation : "that resettlement per "Final Solution" policy is much different than resettlement in Transnistria" . This is obviously true, because Romanian governed USSR would be different than German governed USSR.

But within the orthodox framework, this is precisely the reason resettlement actually happened in Transnistria. The belief is the Romanians had a genocidal policy towards the Jews eg

"According to information today from director General Lecca, 110,000 Jews are being evacuated from Bukovina and Bessarabia into two forests in the Bug River Area. As far as he could learn, this action is based upon an order issued by Marshal Antonescu. Purpose of the action is the liquidation of these Jews" (3319-PS)

but their genocidal policy was not absolute (extending to all non-employable Jews), so an actual resettlement did occur in Transnistria.

Basically if this is what you're trying to prove, "resettlement" in these two places were different, I agree with you. But this isn't a substantive argument, because every resettlement is different. Technically all your arguments and points don't even matter if this is all you have to prove, you've ended the debate with just this sentence.

In my mind what you have to show and explain is how a mass resettlement could plausibly occur without generating any direct evidence. The point of comparing it to events like what happened in Transnistria is to bring other historical examples into play which might help dispel the notion that mass movements of people in history, even during wartime, even within the USSR, occur without leaving an evidence trail. And that the USSR did not affect any sort of cover up of resettlement in the Romanian occupied portion of their territory.

I guess one basic question for you, and then when can get into the nitty gritty more, is -- do you acknowledge that what you are alleging with "resettlement per final solution" seems to be unprecedented (with nothing remotely close) in recent history in regards to evidence generated with mass population transfers?

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Butterfangers » 1 week 1 day ago (Thu Jun 01, 2023 6:52 pm)

bombsaway wrote:I think this is your problem -- your speculation : "that resettlement per "Final Solution" policy is much different than resettlement in Transnistria" . This is obviously true, because Romanian governed USSR would be different than German governed USSR.

But within the orthodox framework, this is precisely the reason resettlement actually happened in Transnistria. The belief is the Romanians had a genocidal policy towards the Jews eg

"According to information today from director General Lecca, 110,000 Jews are being evacuated from Bukovina and Bessarabia into two forests in the Bug River Area. As far as he could learn, this action is based upon an order issued by Marshal Antonescu. Purpose of the action is the liquidation of these Jews" (3319-PS)

but their genocidal policy was not absolute (extending to all non-employable Jews), so an actual resettlement did occur in Transnistria.

bombsaway, just wow. So, you admit that the Romanian government is different than the German government, as is their management of operations in their respective occupied territories at the time in question (although I'll note that you avoid any analysis of just how different they were, or why). You then explain what the "orthodox framework" interprets, seemingly presented as evidence for how the Revisionist framework is wrong. It should go without saying that this does nothing to support your case, given you have provided no actual evidence that the orthodox framework interpretation is correct; you have simply declared it. Congratulations on your meaningless declaration, bombsaway.

As for your document excerpt above (3319-PS):

  • It comes from #87 on your earlier list of Romanian documents regarding Jewish policy (http://hauster.de/data/Ancel/17020501Ancel.pdf). Presumably, that means you had to skip all the way past #1-86 to find something you could interpret to be demonstrative of any policy of genocide.
  • This document explicitly indicates "evacuation" in the subject line and then again in the body text. Hence, this is what the document is primarily about.
  • It mentions "liquidation" only once (and killing nowhere) when describing the inferred purpose of the evacuation. As discussed elsewhere, "liquidation" may very simply refer to dispossession or otherwise simply "clearing out" these Jews from those locations from which they were evacuated.

The purpose of their evacuation, in other words, was liquidation of Jews from those areas of Bukovina and Bessarabia (rendering these places "Judenfrei").

But don't be discouraged, bombsaway. Perhaps if you skim through another 87 or so documents on that list, you might find another to help your case.

Basically if this is what you're trying to prove, "resettlement" in these two places were different, I agree with you.

Gee, that's quite refreshing. Now tell us how different they are, bombsaway. Really break down the differences for us, so it's clear that you understand and acknowledge them.


But this isn't a substantive argument, because every resettlement is different. Technically all your arguments and points don't even matter if this is all you have to prove, you've ended the debate with just this sentence.

What? My point in all of this has never been that the two resettlements were "simply different and that's that!". I have explained, clearly, some of the important differences between them. It is precisely these described differences which you avoid addressing altogether. Here it is again, the fifth time, bombsaway, this time in red. Please respond:

  • How many fewer reports should we expect with such stark differences in administration (between Transnistria and other Eastern-occupied territories)?
  • How many fewer should we expect when Jews were diffused/dispersed all throughout a massive region (i.e. relatively low numbers to each area)?
  • How many of the "unfit" Jews actually were used for labor in the East (hence, housed within the massive labor camp network through the end of the war)?
  • How many of the remaining Jews ended up in any of the thousands of other camps or collection sites which are known to have existed (remember, 40,000+ in Europe)?
  • Who would have been motivated to document Jews that were resettled? Did the Germans have any real motivation to document these placements?
  • Who had motivation to actually cover-up these placements? How many could have been covered-up by the Germans? By the Allied governments? By the Soviets, in particular? By Jews themselves, wishing to remain in hiding long after the war?
  • How many were quite literally "erased" from the historical record by the Allies through the course of post-war trials and their dishonest historiography?
  • How many of these Jews did the Soviets kill immediately, imprison indefinitely, or otherwise wipe from the record?


The questions above highlight some of the conditions which were present and relevant in Final Solution resettlement but not for Transnistria (for even more of these conditions, see here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15007).

In my mind what you have to show and explain is how a mass resettlement could plausibly occur without generating any direct evidence.

This has been done, bombsaway.

  • Subjected to German forced labor in Eastern territories until death: 15%
  • Unauthorized killings of deported Jews by Germans in Eastern territories: 1%
  • Killed in the crossfire as the Soviet army advanced: 7%
  • Killed by the Soviet army deliberately during the advance: 1%
  • Killed through the course of Stalin/Soviet purges: 5%
  • Died after deportation to gulag: 15%
  • Subjected to Soviet forced labor leading to death (other than gulag): 5%
  • Death due to war and immediate postwar conditions (scarcity, disease, local violence, etc.): 22%
  • Joined partisan resistance movements and died in combat: 4%
  • Joined partisan resistance movements and died as POWs: 1%
  • Included in reprisal killings (e.g. by Einsatzgruppen): 3%
  • Children "reeducated" and losing Jewish identity: 3%
  • Survived for years, decades in hiding or integration with local populations or Soviet system: 14%
  • Escaped to other nations and survived for years, decades: 4%


Which of the above are you saying could not have been as high of a percentage as I suggest being plausible, above? Which ones could feasibly have been even higher (I know it's much to ask but please be honest)?

Remember also that I forgot to include in the above the issue of the Zwangsarbeitslagers, which are yet another gigantic hole in your position. You're fucked, bombsaway.

bombsaway wrote:The point of comparing it to events like what happened in Transnistria is to bring other historical examples into play which might help dispel the notion that mass movements of people in history, even during wartime, even within the USSR, occur without leaving an evidence trail.

You seem to think that because you can fit both events under the label of " Mass Movements of People in History " that they should produce similar evidence. And yet you do not back this up at all by describing how these movements were meaningfully similar nor refuting any points which demonstrate extreme and obvious differences.

And that the USSR did not affect any sort of cover up of resettlement in the Romanian occupied portion of their territory.

Again, you completely disregard the qualitative differences for either situation. Here are some more:

  • The former German-occupied territories fell under direct Soviet control post-war, versus Romania being an independent satellite (though with many policies still under Soviet influence). Territories under direct control had a systematic and centralized handling of records based on directives from Moscow (including total destruction of records they aimed to suppress). The same level of influence is not evidenced in satellite states.
  • Other circumstances that were particularly prominent in the former German-occupied territories (i.e. Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine) include substantial impact and chaos caused by the war itself as well as major postwar population changes.

Remember, the above are just add-ons to the myriad other points you have already ignored, both in this thread and in certain others of late.

I guess one basic question for you, and then when can get into the nitty gritty more, is -- do you acknowledge that what you are alleging with "resettlement per final solution" seems to be unprecedented (with nothing remotely close) in recent history in regards to evidence generated with mass population transfers?

You're a clown, bombsaway. You have no "nitty gritty" to get into. :lol: I am calling your bluff, 110%. You say shit like, "give me your best arguments", "we'll get into the nitty gritty real soon", etc., to feign confidence because you are a clown who will not admit he was wrong and would prefer to remain prideful rather than approach this objectively, honestly, or with any amount of integrity. You have shown your tactics and biases repeatedly in recent threads over multiple topics. No one who has followed these topics thus far and is keeping an open mind can possibly take you seriously at this point.

But by all means, bring on the "nitty gritty". :roll:

With regard to whether ""resettlement per final solution" seems to be unprecedented"... yes, bombsaway, it is the only time a large population was scrambled into countless different directions internally during the greatest war of all-time, before x number of them being sent far and away, quietly into USSR territory (immediately before the erection of an Iron Curtain) where there is no reason to expect the retention of documents about such transfers would have been desired nor produced by either government nor, for that matter, by anyone else. The notion that any such documents, if any were produced, would have survived several decades to be discovered and used by Revisionists or anyone else is even more improbable, for reasons already stated.

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby forasanerworld » 1 week 1 day ago (Thu Jun 01, 2023 7:54 pm)

bombsaway wrote:
Lamprecht wrote:Speculation is necessary here since you refuse to provide a case for the pits.


EXTRACT

I will now provide my case in very broad strokes and hopefully you understand where I'm coming from. I believe in the orthodox hypothesis in a probabilistic sense, based on a few things: 

1, the collective strength of the witness and documentary evidence that supports this hypothesis. Testimonies and documents don't carry much weight alone, but when combined with others the probative value increases incrementally. If there are hundreds of documents or testimonies, the evidentiary case becomes very strong. 


That is where the argument collapses, "eye witness" testimony is known to be unreliable in any situation, that accepted in the post war tribunals was typically unsigned and unsworn, the courts could admit any old rubbish if they felt it of "probative value", having hundreds of such potentially fraudulent submissions changes the likelihood of veracity by not one jot, it is now demonstrably the case that many such testimonies were at best mistaken and at worst they were wilfull perjury

As to documentation, the prosecution had a vast staff resource who could trawl any German document it wanted to, it was applied for by the prosecution to be able only to submit part of a document; the defense were often not even criminal law practionners and could ONLY refer to the documents entered b the prosecution, in other words, the London Charter setting up Nuremberg/IMT deliberately loaded the dice

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Hektor » 1 week 1 day ago (Fri Jun 02, 2023 12:27 am)

forasanerworld wrote:
bombsaway wrote:
Lamprecht wrote:Speculation is necessary here since you refuse to provide a case for the pits.

....strong. 


That is where the argument collapses, "eye witness" testimony is known to be unreliable in any situation, that accepted in the post war tribunals was typically unsigned and unsworn, the courts could admit any old rubbish if they felt it of "probative value", having hundreds of such potentially fraudulent submissions changes the likelihood of veracity by not one jot, it is now demonstrably the case that many such testimonies were at best mistaken and at worst they were wilfull perjury

As to documentation, the prosecution had a vast staff resource who could trawl any German document it wanted to, it was applied for by the prosecution to be able only to submit part of a document; the defense were often not even criminal law practionners and could ONLY refer to the documents entered b the prosecution, in other words, the London Charter setting up Nuremberg/IMT deliberately loaded the dice


Testimony makes the biggest impression in court though.
And well, if it is convincing, conclusive, etc. it does have probative value.

A problem is, when testimony is not backed up by respective physical evidence. And well, when there is a vendetta against the accused, especially when this vendetta is backed up by well-organized people like governments, political parties, lobby organizations etc.

In case of e.g. Auschwitz it should be noted that most witnesses did not claim direct knowledge about an 'extermination program' or homicidal gassings... Even those that had an axe to grind didn't say so.

Notably the Communist witnesses didn't say they 'saw people being gassed'... But they said things in a way that assumes the gassing narrative to be true. The testimony itself does in part however contradict that narrative. Given that the witnesses were there as Communists AND Jews... one would actually assume that they were the first that had to be gassed. But they were not. In fact they testify to medical treatment in a flaunting way... As if they wanted to say.... "Yeah, you actually treated us well, but we still frame you for mass murder".

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby bombsaway » 1 week 21 hours ago (Fri Jun 02, 2023 8:36 am)

Butterfangers wrote:
With regard to whether ""resettlement per final solution" seems to be unprecedented"... yes, bombsaway, it is the only time a large population was scrambled into countless different directions internally during the greatest war of all-time, before x number of them being sent far and away, quietly into USSR territory (immediately before the erection of an Iron Curtain) where there is no reason to expect the retention of documents about such transfers would have been desired nor produced by either government nor, for that matter, by anyone else. The notion that any such documents, if any were produced, would have survived several decades to be discovered and used by Revisionists or anyone else is even more improbable, for reasons already stated.


You're making a claim that documentary and witness evidence wouldn't exist for this, but you can read about the deportation of the Volga Germans, which was an event where "a large population was scrambled into countless different directions internally during the greatest war of all-time". They were dispersed into a far greater area and less developed than the Jews could have been, Siberia, Kazakhstan, and other places. The Soviets mistreated them horribly and hundreds of thousands likely died (this is documented, yes the Soviets didn't destroy evidence of their crimes here). We know in great detail the places they were sent, and about what happened to them when they got there

https://www.norkarussia.info/uploads/3/ ... ermans.pdf

We also know that hundreds of thousands were repatriated back to Germany after the fall of the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan_Germans

I have explained, clearly, some of the important differences between them. It is precisely these described differences which you avoid addressing altogether. Here it is again, the fifth time, bombsaway, this time in red. Please respond:


What you fail to show is that the differences would likely amount to massive amounts of direct documentary and witness evidence being generated for Transnistria as opposed to zero for the Reinhard Jews.

Nevertheless I'll answer these a few at a time.

How many fewer reports should we expect with such stark differences in administration (between Transnistria and other Eastern-occupied territories)?


You haven't shown the "stark differences" in administration. German documentation of Jews in ghettos in occupied USSR was extensive, even in the furthest out and remote territories captured in 1942 in Case Blue. You can read about some of these places here: https://www.ushmm.org/online/camps-ghet ... _PartB.pdf

Basically it's hard for me to answer this question. I don't think there would be much of a difference and I could argue that the Germans were more meticulous with records than the Romanians.

How many fewer should we expect when Jews were diffused/dispersed all throughout a massive region (i.e. relatively low numbers to each area)?


You're assuming resettlement happened this way which doesn't really make sense. The Jews were considered security threats (see the Kube document which speaks of the systematic killing of non-employable Jews, children, and elderly for this reason, and non Russian/Yiddish speaking German Jews). The Kube document also speaks of Polish Jews as being even more of a threat. Is your assumption they just let these people off the trains and they scattered to the wind, without the police paying them any mind?

If they were set up in tiny resettlement camps dispersed across the Russian hinterland, how do they get there? How are they fed or supplied? Documents and bureaucracy are still going to be necessary, unless the plan was for them to just die in these places.

Also see my first point about the Volga Germans, who were dispersed through much more massive and sparse regions and whose travels and fates are well documented.

So to answer this question I have no idea, and I don't think you do either. Like with your other question, the situation is complicated, and to consider it a clear cut case of yeah this would make a massive difference smacks of motivated reasoning.

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Archie » 1 week 19 hours ago (Fri Jun 02, 2023 11:01 am)

bombsaway wrote:
Archie wrote:
I already quoted their key summary sentence for you. They listed ONE for Treblinka, two for Belzec, and three for Sobibor. Those are the "good" witnesses, according to HC.

They didn't include those other two (only briefly mentioned them separately) because they could not claim them as "direct" witnesses.


Yep nobody else who did work around the engines reported any other engine being down there. You haven't explained this coincidence, which is a good example of witnesses getting details right (and the same applies to gas van drivers and operators).


Archie wrote:The argument is that your whole thing hinges on fictional stories. These stories do not cohere credibly. To the extent they can be corroborated with hard evidence, then often fail on major points. They have internal contradicts and major contradictions with each other.


The stories all agree on the main point, which is that people were killed in the camps en masse. The stories don't agree on particular details, which could be argued as unimportant (eg the diesel thing, which revisionists didn't even pay much mind to until the 80s), but I don't see why this is an issue.

As I've said before I would expect witness testimony to diverge to some extent on details. This is par for the course for witness testimony concerning mass events. Eg German generals had totally different interpretations of key events and meetings during the war, witnesses differed in their reporting of the sinking of the Titanic. I can provide specific references here if need be.


gl0spana,

The problem with your approach is that you can't just say you "expect witness testimony to diverge" and use that as an excuse to overlook contradictions and absurdities. That leaves you with no way of detecting FALSE testimony. Some testimony is false. Some is true. You need some way of distinguishing. The approach you have described is useless because it defaults to accepting (or at least not rejecting) all testimony except for various unprincipled exceptions that you invent on the fly to reach the desired conclusion.

This is why it's better to have HARD EVIDENCE. With these camps, we do have some hard evidence but only for the unexceptional aspects. For the gassings and so forth we have stories that are "corroborated" only by other stories. If you read the originals you will see that they actually don't corroborate each other at all. They are a mix of cliches/plagiarisms and contradictions and hence are almost certainly not based in fact.

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Hektor » 1 week 12 hours ago (Fri Jun 02, 2023 5:30 pm)

Archie wrote:
bombsaway wrote:
Archie wrote:
I already quoted their key summary .....d be.


gl0spana,

The problem with your approach is that you can't just say you "expect witness testimony to diverge" and use that as an excuse to overlook contradictions and absurdities. That leaves you with no way of detecting FALSE testimony. Some testimony is false. Some is true. You need some way of distinguishing. The approach you have described is useless because it defaults to accepting (or at least not rejecting) all testimony except for various unprincipled exceptions that you invent on the fly to reach the desired conclusion.

This is why it's better to have HARD EVIDENCE. With these camps, we do have some hard evidence but only for the unexceptional aspects. For the gassings and so forth we have stories that are "corroborated" only by other stories. If you read the originals you will see that they actually don't corroborate each other at all. They are a mix of cliches/plagiarisms and contradictions and hence are almost certainly not based in fact.


People need to put the blinders off.

If the Holocaust was "true as alleged" does anyone think we would have too much of a debate here?

Thorough forensic research would have been done long ago of the matter. Especially at a place like Auschwitz, but also Babi Yar, etc. They'd have proven what they can proof, dismissed as unproven what they can't and put the findings into a comprehensive and concise reports and published in book form, perhaps several volumes.

Yet we don't have anything like this. What we get is 'memorial sites' and 'Holocaust memorials' with a religious character, albeit acceptable to people of the modern/post-modern age. We get lots of movies and shockumentary (Who costed multiple times that what the most thorough research would have costed). And well, we got persecution of critics and all kinds of manipulative programs to make people believe in the narrative. Holocaustian arguments do have insinuative and anecdotal character. But whom are they kidding? Their argument is akin to someone claiming that London has been nuked, showing me photos of destroyed buildings and some report showing materials were exposed to increased radioactivity. They could parade a number of witnesses, But a completely demonstrated London they could not show of course. Given that and given that as City London didn't move nobody would be impressed by this, it would be laughed off. But it's easier to demonstrate it false than some alleged mass killing programs in countries a long time ago. And that opens up the opportunity to play silly games with the public and gullible audiences.

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Re: BA's case for orthodoxy

Postby Butterfangers » 1 week 22 minutes ago (Sat Jun 03, 2023 5:58 am)

bombsaway wrote:You're making a claim that documentary and witness evidence wouldn't exist for this, but you can read about the deportation of the Volga Germans, which was an event where "a large population was scrambled into countless different directions internally during the greatest war of all-time". They were dispersed into a far greater area and less developed than the Jews could have been, Siberia, Kazakhstan, and other places. The Soviets mistreated them horribly and hundreds of thousands likely died (this is documented, yes the Soviets didn't destroy evidence of their crimes here). We know in great detail the places they were sent, and about what happened to them when they got there

Let's sum up your argument, bombsaway:

Butterfangers explains why documentary evidence wouldn't exist for X but it exists for Y, therefore should exist for X.

In the above, "Y" is Volga Germans. In your previous posts, though, you had a different argument:

Butterfangers explains why documentary evidence wouldn't exist for X but it exists for Z, therefore should exist for X.

"Z", of course, is Jews in Transnistria.

You have seemingly now abandoned "Z" in favor of "Y". Does this mean you finally concede that "Z"/Transnistria is not sufficiently comparable [to resettlement per Final Solution policy] to sustain your argument?

It seems you have avoided discussing in any detail the considerable differences between resettlement of Jews in Transnistria versus those resettled in German Eastern-occupied territories, now shifting the discussion toward comparison to another resettlement altogether. Here is a recap:

bombsaway: "What about Transnistria?"

Butterfangers: "Transnistria isn't comparable to Jewish resettlement in the East, bombsaway, here's why..."

bombsaway: "I still think it is."

Butterfangers: "Okay, bombsaway, please explain why."

bombsaway: "What about Volga Germans?"


In any case, I suppose I'll bite. Here you go (comparison):

volga Gs and Jews.png


We also know that hundreds of thousands were repatriated back to Germany after the fall of the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan_Germans

So, clearly, the plan was not to make them 'disappear' forever. The same cannot be said of Soviet intentions toward Jews.

What you fail to show is that the differences would likely amount to massive amounts of direct documentary and witness evidence being generated for Transnistria as opposed to zero for the Reinhard Jews.

This is completely false, bombsaway. I have demonstrated this quite clearly, breaking everything down into categories for you. You're welcome, btw.

Are you saying enough Jews should have survived (and long enough) to have had their movements documented? I broke that down in my last reply (quoted from another thread). I won't waste space by doing it again here.

Or, are you saying that those Jews who did survive and stick around should have also left evidence? Because, again, I have covered that already as well, above (somewhat) and even more thoroughly in the other thread.

You tend to do this "thing" where you say things that simply are not true, and hope that no one calls you out on it. You do it often.

Nevertheless I'll answer these a few at a time.


Oh boy. Can't wait.

You haven't shown the "stark differences" in administration. German documentation of Jews in ghettos in occupied USSR was extensive, even in the furthest out and remote territories captured in 1942 in Case Blue. You can read about some of these places here: https://www.ushmm.org/online/camps-ghet ... _PartB.pdf

bombsaway, unfortunately for you, I have spent a good deal of time investigating the labor sites in the East. Very little is known of these places. For example, here is perhaps one of the most comprehensive mappings of eastern labor camps currently in existence, (put together by yours truly):

https://www.mapcustomizer.com/map/Zwang ... ndUkraine7

This map includes data on what work, activities, population, open-close dates etc. is known of these camps. Some camps have useful data, but most... have very little. And these camps represent only perhaps a small fraction of those of the same type estimated to exist in the region.

Data is from here: http://www.deutschland-ein-denkmal.de/

It's noted that you don't quantify your claim that "German documentation of Jews in ghettos in occupied USSR was extensive". Just how "extensive" was it, bombsaway? Did it capture 100% of all Jewish camps and collection sites? 90%? 50%? 20%?

Unfortunately for you, "German documentation of Jews in ghettos in occupied USSR was extensive" was, in fact, piss-poor, as indicated by your own source:

From the time that work began on this volume in January
2002, unique challenges arose that made the production pro-
cess different than it was for Volume I. The existing lists of
ghettos were by no means complete and were somewhat con-
tradictory. In addition, there was no clear definition of what a
ghetto was. Even the wartime German authorities themselves
had varying conceptions of a ghetto, using it to mean quite
different things according to the time and place. They also
made only very sporadic attempts to record where ghettos
existed, other than the few major ones. Whereas the concen-
tration camp system was highly organized with a considerable
degree of internal documentation, ghettoization was at best a
regional— and often, a local— phenomenon. What soon be-
came clear was that there were many more ghettos than
recorded on the previous lists and that a great many sites
would have to be examined closely to determine whether or
not a ghetto existed. In addition, due to the scarcity of Ger-
man documentation, a considerable amount of reliance would
have to be placed on the accounts of survivors and postwar
investigations.

From the Editor's Introduction, p. xliii: https://www.ushmm.org/online/camps-ghet ... _PartA.pdf

Clearly, there is neither a strong case for how many ghettos there actually were nor what actually happened within them and in what scale. But what about that "convergence of evidence" we are always hearing about? Are we back to "converging testimony" again?

Let's consider something else for a moment. Consider the amount of time and resources that went into the project of developing the multi-volume, multi-thousand page USHMM Encylopedia linked above

This volume of the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos has
truly been a collaborative work in many different respects.
Not only have more than 100 individuals been involved in its
preparation, but many essays were written by two or more
people, and in some cases, more than one translator was in-
volved in the preparation of an entry. This reflects above all
the multilingual nature of the source material used. Often
drafts were received in Russian or Polish from historians
working with documents from archives in Eastern Eu rope;
then additions were made to the entries from archival sources,
yizkor books, or other publications located at USHMM. A
number of volunteers played an important role translating and
summarizing many oral and visual histories, documents, and
publications in languages such as Polish, Hebrew, Russian,
Yiddish, and Lithuanian, which were then incorporated into
the essays.

p. xlvi

Is a project of this scale ever anticipated to being possible for Revisionists, against the vicious current of major suppression and persecution?

Not only do you have a number of well-paid scholars who have the time and resources to dedicate their entire lives to their work defending the orthodox view, but you have many others (altogether 100 individuals) who, at most, lose only the time they invest in this work.

If Revisionists were to attempt such an effort, they would have a choice: remain anonymous or risk your life being destroyed. But how do you organize 100 people (strangers) to collaborate on a project, anonymously? How difficult is it to even find 100 people who have gained adequate expertise in a field which requires dealing with threats of persecution and constant suppression?

The resource gap between Revisionist scholars and orthodoxy has always stood out to me as an understated element in this ongoing debate. I think the quoted paragraph above highlights that quite well.

Moving on, although there is good reason to suggest many if not the vast majority of "Aktions" against Jews have been exaggerated to some significant degree (and that many were invented altogether), I found one passage interesting, from the same source last referenced:

The Jews on work details
heard rumors about killing Aktions conducted against other
Jewish communities nearby, and some Jews made plans to es-
cape to the forests to join the Soviet partisans.
On March 14, 1942, Soviet partisans attacked the Cho-
cienczyce estate, which enabled some of the Jews from the
ghetto there to flee with the partisans into the forests. In re-
sponse, the German Security Police from Wilejka conducted
a reprisal Aktion against the ghetto in Ilja on March 17, in
which about 600 Jews were murdered.

p. 1175

This tells of a very interesting pattern: Jews hear rumors of mass executions of Jews (often related to partisan activity) so they decide to join the partisans. Reprisal killings then happen as a result, which more Jews elsewhere then hear rumors of. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I wonder how many Jews may have been killed (or gotten others killed) in this way.

I'm short on time so will have to finish the rest of my response later.


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